Stephen Stills – Stateline Blues (2CD)

30 July 2018

The two concerts contained in this release come from the mid-seventies and the late seventies; one concert and radio performance from 1976 in New York and the second at the tenth anniversary of Woodstock, a legendary concert that Stephen Stills had taken part in as part of CSNY when the original was held in August 1969. The 1976 concert took place at the Palladium in New York on October 1976. The set features songs from Stephen Still’s past including the Buffalo Springfield song For What It’s Worth and the CSN song Helplessly Hoping plus newer songs from the Stills Young album Long May You Run.

The second show featured here comes from the tenth anniversary Woodstock festival, Stephen Stills who was once again on hiatus from Crosby Stills and Nash puts in a great performance here with a band he dubbed The California Blues Band, although the set list was an unusual one even for Stills.

We do have spirited versions of Woodstock and For What It’s Worth. More surprisingly Stephen and the band perform a great version of the Muddy Waters song Hoochie Coochie Man which features another Woodstock alumni John Sebastian guesting on harp. The song segues rather nicely into Rocky Mountain Way a regular in the Stills live set. The set finishes appropriately enough with Woodstock and then Stephen returns on his own to perform Treetop Flyer a song from 1976 but ultimately not released in its studio version until the Stills Alone album of 1991.